Rob Liefeld was born in Fullerton, California on October 3, 1967. Rob was born into a line of Baptist preachers of whom his father Paul was one. Rob's talents, however, were more artistic and in 1985, he pursued his dream of becoming a comic book artist by showing his work to representatives of both Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Liefeld was hired by both companies: DC hiring him to illustrate their Hawk and Dove mini-series and Marvel to become the artist of their X-Men spin-off The New Mutants. Liefeld gained critical acclaim for his work on these titles and quickly became a fan favorite.

Liefeld's work at Marvel continued, illustrating The New Mutants through its change into the darker and edgier title X-Force. Then in 1992, a number of Marvel artists decided to create an independent publisher for their work, and Image Comics was born. Liefeld's first title for the new publisher was an original work called Youngblood. Liefeld also worked with a number of other characters, including Supreme, Glory, the New Men, and Prophet. Although Liefeld's work at Image was originally well-received, missed deadlines and slow work caused his popularity and following to wane. Eventually, Liefeld resigned from Image under pressure from the rest of the staff.

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Liefeld exists as something of a paradox in the Comic-bookindustry. Though critically panned by almost every critic worth their salt for nearly every project he's taken part in for the past decade, his presence on a title almost always brings about a sales spike for at least a short while.

Some have speculated that this represents the fans who loathe him buying the book so they can criticize his bizarre artwork, while others have suggested that he has a secret fan-base who remain silent while buying his books in large quantities. Given his seeming inability to keep any comic book of his own going for more than a few months at a time before poor sales or other financial difficultieskill it, it's difficult to say who this fan-base is made up of or what actually motivates them.